I marked an answer "as not providing an answer to the question" and I received a series of insults from the answerer. How to deal with these type of situations? I think that people not willing to be criticized and acting offensively should be banned for a while. Which countermeasures are taken in situations like this?
Moreover, if the OP indicate that he has thousand of points while showing only 35 points, can this be understood like he has double account on SO?

Just a note, there's no point you (or anyone else) exacerbating this further by engaging... Just leave well alone. And, I've been alive since 1984, and using a computer since 1989, so I know this.
– BenOct 12 '14 at 7:40

4

@Ben, I agree with you. I limited my self in explaining why I marked the answer in that way then I left him alone.
– FeliceMOct 12 '14 at 7:42

@Mysticial A question; is it high-rep users that deal with offensive flags, an auto-system, or diamond mods? ... Or some combination of any of the prior three? Aside, I'm beginning to run out of flags.
– DaedalusOct 12 '14 at 7:53

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@Daedalus Only mods can see comment flags. But under some circumstances, a comment can be deleted via flags without moderator intervention.
– MysticialOct 12 '14 at 7:54

@Ben: oh, you young, young fry. I've been alive since 1973 and been chasing babies like you of my lawn since 1984!
– Martijn Pieters♦Oct 12 '14 at 9:34

😄 @Martijn. It was meant to be a riff off the '96 comment, just earlier and with things people could still turn into a competition but were less likely to... I couldn't walk in 1984 so chasing may have been difficult but I can imagine "throwing"!
– BenOct 12 '14 at 9:43

I scrubbed the comments related to this particular user, since we don't want to publicly shame anyone. The question stands by itself as a general one, and I wanted to focus discussion on that.
– Brad Larson♦Oct 15 '14 at 18:14

@BradLarson There's something strange with that user's rating. Despite having more than 40 positively rated answers (+many zero-rated accepted answers), only a few downvotes and NO offered bounties, his rating was 34 right before the temporary suspension. How could it happen?
– IdolonOct 17 '14 at 19:20

@BradLarson And now after the ban he has >1K rating. What was that? Serial downvoting caused by the Meta effect, now reversed, or something else?
– IdolonOct 19 '14 at 10:58

@BradLarson I mentioned in my original question above that there was something strange with this guys since he was under the impression that his answer was given from an account with several thousand scoring votes.
– FeliceMOct 19 '14 at 12:47

@Idolon - All I will say is that this particular user has been dealt with. I recommend not dwelling on them any further.
– Brad Larson♦Oct 19 '14 at 14:47

1 Answer
1

You flag the comments (use offensive) and move on. Leave dealing with a user like this to the moderators and do not engage. Flagging is only visible to moderators, the user cannot see that you have done so, nor can other users.

Moderators will engage the user if there are multiple cases of comments with offensive flags on them, and can do so in a private and non-conflicting manner. If a user doesn't improve their behaviour, temporarily banning the user is an option.

Most of all, do not call out the user here on Meta! Moderators try and address the behaviour, not the user. Calling out the user here only brings in the vigilantes, and we really don't want that.

Would you mind explaining the "temporarily" part in "temporarily banning" a bit further ? IMHO, such a user could be having a bad day but repeated offenses demonstrate a tendency to troll rather than providing constructive answers. Why would we want that type of user on SO ? Is there something I'm missing ? Thanks for the explanation !
– 2DeeOct 13 '14 at 12:52

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@2Dee: It is rare for a user to persist in disruptive behaviour, and we believe in second chances. See A Day in the Penalty Box. If the user continues to be disruptive, longer bans are possible.
– Martijn Pieters♦Oct 13 '14 at 12:54

1

Flagging is only visible to moderators, the user cannot see that you have done so What happens if the user is a moderator?
– stephenmurdochOct 13 '14 at 16:21

A variation on the theme. I saw a one sentence fly-by answer to a question. I commented: "True, but how does this answer the question?: The answerer added a sentence that said "and this might cause the problem you are seeing." I followed that up with another comment that said "could you please explain what the OP can do to fix this?" and the answerer commented "F**k you, Dale Wilson". As soon as I saw this comment, I flagged it as offensive, but the answerer deleted the comment just as quickly. Has he found a way to beat the system by erasing his tracks?
– Dale WilsonOct 14 '14 at 16:20

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@DaleWilson: no, certain keywords make comments insta-deletable with an offensive flag. You found one of those keywords. They didn't delete the comment, your flag did. I'd expect any of the 7 dirty words to be on that list.
– Martijn Pieters♦Oct 14 '14 at 16:21

@MartijnPieters what about those comments in my regional language? It happened me today. How would SO moderators handle those issue?
– Vinoth KrishnanMar 3 '16 at 8:18

In this URL actually I tried to help him by questioning for more details. He's commented abusively and it's deleted. Which may not comes under the 7-words category, since it's the regional language.
– Vinoth KrishnanMar 3 '16 at 8:23

@VinothKrishnan the user deleted the comment themselves. If you'd flagged that comment as offensive, I'd have asked a fellow moderator familiar with the language and / or used machine translation to check if the user needs contacting about their behaviour. For cases like these, a custom comment flag explaining what the comment is saying would be much appreciated.
– Martijn Pieters♦Mar 3 '16 at 8:46